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Month: March 2016

I want to remember people how they were. The exact image they portrayed, very long ago in a nostalgic paradise. Where time stood still and you remained in your pristine condition. If only photographs could talk, would I be able to point you out completely. Storytelling is far to good to tell, then by photographic memory.

That’s where I keep you.

Locked away in the vaults of my memory. Hidden in the crevices of my brain, locked away under stories and memories. It doesn’t matter what I do, I continue to search for you. Across the country, across the state, across the faces of the people I loved. Maybe it has always been you. Maybe it was this illusion of staying in one place or coming back home to something. It didn’t matter. People will scan across these words thinking its about a specific person and it’s not. Sometimes there’s that one person you want to forget but you keep being reminded of. Sometimes you want to keep stories personal, and as you get older you can’t keep things to yourself anymore.

I watch buildings change. I watch people grow up. I look at places that meant the world to me, go through different variations of themselves that they become nonexistent. I watch the cities I spent my youth in become gentrified garbage, instead of the kitschy places they used to be. I love the nostalgia, I love the stories, and I know they can’t go on forever. Buildings change, people grow up, and even people we once loved have a reality. Sometimes I think I love you, and then I become the 18 year old with bold expectations. Now a days it’s just a silly notion of my youth. Silly memories of never wanting to grow up. Staying up all night, looking up at the stars, and wishing to be in bigger cities with the people that meant the most to you.

You have become different heroic expectations in many aspects of my stories. Lingering in and out of my mind, coming and going just as you please. Some days I want badly to hate you, but I can’t. Other times I just wished you never existed. Deep down a part of me knows that I am officially crazy. The person I believe you to be and the person you really are, are two different people. This image I keep of you doesn’t exist to anyone else but myself. I feel crazy to even believe who I think you are. The thing with fantasies is that people’s realities are far to realistic. To know who you truly are in reality, kills the dream I have conjured up in my mind. You existed to me. Even if no one believes me. Every hero I write is based on stories of the past and the person I believed you to be. But the past is the past, I can’t keep searching for you in faces of people that no longer exist. I can’t keep holding a candle to a person that is kept only in stories of a nostalgic paradise. When you grow up, you have to let go of the things you once loved. Making way for new memories and journeys, new loves and expectations. Maybe I will always be just jealous cause we’re young and in love, but I have to grow up some time.

18-year-olds grow up to be 33-year-olds. Even you had to grow up some time. You’ll always be the hero at the end of every one of my stories.

I don’t know why I say the things I do. Or if I mean them to begin with. The little green monster comes out to throw everything upside down. Throw salt on all the wounds, to feel bitterness through the sweet. Sometimes I just want to say sorry for the words that slur out wrong. The words that come out in anger instead of love. I wouldn’t be so bold if it wasn’t for things beyond my control. Wouldn’t be so bold if it wasn’t for every last sip of this never ending cup. Its the liquid courage that makes me so courageous. The magic feather of bravery inside every bottle, can, or glass.

How much of what I say is really how I feel inside. How much of what I think is based off of ignorant bliss, hidden inside every tall can or glass. I cannot be this crazy. I cannot be this truly hurt. I cannot be so brave in my skin when I am frightened by my actions. If I mean what I say, what does it mean when I’ve had a helping hand at this.

I don’t mean everything I say, do I?
Not every word of it.
Maybe I do.

I can’t help but feel slightly embarrassed by my actions. A simple drink can turn to three or four, and you find yourself telling secrets to people you shouldn’t. Sometimes I don’t want to keep so many secrets. Sometimes I just want to write them all down for everyone to see. I want to say “I miss you” when I can’t bring myself that sense of honesty. With this drink I feel a powerless power. A sense of normalcy amongst all the crazy conservative feelings. I could do anything, say anything, and yet, I find myself wishing that I hadn’t. I don’t like the way my drink tastes so bitter with my own sour thoughts. Yet, I polish off this drink and beg for more just like it.

You don’t realize how much you drink until you stop. You don’t realize what you’ve said until the flashbacks come back to haunt you. Nostalgia has a funny way of coming back to remind you of things you’ve long forgotten. In a familiar song, in a familiar scent, in a familiar drink, as you watch yourself continue to drink to forget. But I never forget. Everything always comes back, right after I said it wouldn’t hurt anymore. I watch my demeanor change from bad to worse. Watching how my speech changes and watch how easier the words go from my tongue to my lips. Its my actions I want to reconsider, its my words I want to forget. Its everything I’ve said that I can’t help but apologize for. We all want to be accountable for our actions. We all wish we could take back all the nasty things we’ve said.

Maybe I truly am sorry for all the things I have said when I was drunk. In the end what I have said will finally set me free. Allow me to be less bitter, allow me to be less hateful, allow me to stop being such a fucking bitch. Liquor doesn’t make monsters, it just helps the monsters be more vicious. I am tired of being a monster. I dedicate this last drink to you. This last moment, this last taste, everything. I am sorry if I have ever hurt you. I am sorry if I said any nasty things about you. Above all, I am sorry if I was never sorry to begin with.

It’s always the broken people you can’t forget. The ones so haunted by the past that no matter what they do, they can’t bring themselves to put themselves back together again. How easy for people to forget and turn off their emotions. Just pretend nothing and no one exists, and continue on their days as if nothing has happened. These people were never real to begin with and no matter how many times you try to reach them, they are never there.

I keep knocking on wood, hoping there’s a real boy inside.

Were you ever real? Were you ever truly broken? I have a hard time separating fact from fiction. The more I think about the past, the more I romanticize this nostalgia. Who you were when you’re broken isn’t the person you turned out to be. And yet, I can’t help but keep running back to these broken people. With their hearts on their sleeves, punch drunk off love. Feeling the emotions, I can’t feel anymore.

Could you ever be a real, real boy.

You feel everything then nothing. Then like clockwork you turn off those emotions that made you bold to begin with. How was I to know that I was only knocking on wood? That all my nostalgic ways were built on puppets pretending to be real boys.

I can’t put you back together again.

After all this time has passed, I find myself thinking about you. I no longer feel resentment toward you. I don’t feel hate, I feel nothing. After all this time I know better. I know to stop searching for the broken people that can’t put themselves back together again. Not to go looking for boys that should have grown up to be men. Stop romanticizing the past, with you as a central character. You don’t exist, you were never real to begin with.